2.25.2010

Atlantic City

I've never been, but I want to.

Does anyone have hotel recommendations? Comp/discount tips?

Spirit Airlines has very cheap round-trip airfare rates from Boston to Newark so I'm fine there. I'm looking to stay Sunday-Thursday next month before March Madness.

Borgata looks to be a very nice hotel but the rates have been too high for my liking so far. I won't spend enough time in the room to justify the cost.

I'm obviously beginning to read up online but so many of these websites are utter trash filled with ads all over the place. It's been tough to weed out the garbage and get to real content.

2.24.2010

Foxwoods Recap

The characters:

Seat 1 - Executive chef at a well known private country club
Seat 2 - Former investment banker
Seat 3 - Seafood cook for a decent restaurant
Seat 4 - Former 5/10 uncapped NL player who had to drop stakes
Seat 5 - Me
Seat 6 - Former president of a manufacturing company who is now self-employed. Amateur chef.
Seat 7 - Drunk tourist
Seat 8 - Young spewtard
Seat 9 - Quiet rock
Seat 10 - Younger, good player

This was my table for the better part of 12 hours. The conversations covered the best wine and restaurants in the world, investment banking, the best online poker site for cash games, the WSOP, China, and the fact that I managed to leave a 1-2 NL table with $1800.

I sat with $300 and basically folded for three or four orbits. Prior to the seafood cook taking seat 3 there was a guy in a Yankees cap who was hammering every single pot and it was working for him. No one at the table, except possibly me, was an aggressive caller and so they were laying down hand after hand to him. Then it happened.

I picked up AQ suited when he was UTG. He made it $13 and I flatted. Obviously it's a raise under most circumstances but I had a plan for the hand.

Everyone else folded, fortunately.

The flop came A 4 8 rainbow. He bet $30 and I flatted. The turn brought another 4 so at this point I was 99.8888% sure I was good. He bet $75 and I jammed over the top for about $160 more. He took a very long time and at that point I was 100% sure I was good. Finally he called and turned over AJ so I won a nice pot there.

I managed to win another pot of about $200 when I flopped top set versus a shorter stack's bottom two pair.

My biggest hand came when I had 55 on the button. There were three limpers ahead of me and I limped the button. Small blind completed and big blind checked his option.

The flop came J 3 5 with two hearts. The small blind led out for pot. Big blind called as did seat 3, the seafood cook. Seat 3 was a pretty aggressive caller who knew how to float in position and take a stab on the turn, but this was a multi-way pot and so I put him on a pretty big heart draw. I thought the SB probably had some sort of Jack in his hand and the BB probably had a Jack or a heart draw.

Obviously I needed to raise here. I made it $75 more on top and the Small Blind thought for a bit before pushing all-in for about $110. The big blind immediately shoved for about $130. Seat 3, his name was Paco, thought really long. We'd been chatting and he knew I was a good player.

Paco: I know that no matter what I do your next action is all-in and so I am doing a pre-emptive all-in. Good luck to us.

Me: You're right. I'm all-in. Let's do this.

Paco had about $340 behind when he shoved so this had turned into a really large pot. The Turn brought a Jack giving me fives full and the river was a 7 or 8. I immediately turned over my boat and the dealer began looking at everyone else.

The small blind turned over J2 of diamonds (wtf?). The BB turned over KT of hearts and even though Paco didn't have to show he sighed and showed me A7 of hearts. Wow. Just wow.

Paco gave me a fist bump and the guy to my immediate right, the former high stakes player, patted me on the back.

Seat 4: It's been a long time since I saw someone with this much money at a 1/2 table. Congratulations. You've definitely played well enough to deserve it.

As I stacked my chips I looked up to realize a couple nearby tables had come over to watch the action because a commotion had been building while we were all taking our action on the flop. I'd been so in the zone that I didn't even realize any of this until the hand was over.

It took 4 racks to go to the cage and I basically had everyone in the 1-2 section looking at me as I took the long walk over there. I could get used to that.

2.22.2010

Foxwoods Redux

I need to get down there more frequently.

Sunday afternoon I sat down at 1/2 with a full stack ($300) and left the table with $1780 at 10:30 PM. I'll do a trip recap as well. I had some very interesting and cool people at my table.

2.19.2010

Wow.

Last night I played in the $10 w/rebuys on the Cake nework.

I'm not one to grumble about bad beats, but the following chain of events is quite ridiculous. 60 get paid and I am 2nd in chips with about 45 remaining. I busted in 3 hands after this sequence. Bear in mind this is three consecutive hands which is the only reason I am posting it.

Hand 1: A guy shoves 11,000 chips UTG and it folds to me on the button. I have 59,500 in chips and snap call with KK. He has 44 and flops a 4.

Hand 2: MP raises 3X. I 3-bet with AsKs. He shoves and I snap call. He has AQ and rivers a Q. That was another 26,000 gone.

Hand 3: UTG min-raises. Someone in MP calls. I once again have AK (offsuit) and shove. UTG folds. MP calls with Ah9h and rivers a flush to eliminate me.

Some nights it just isn't meant to be.

2.17.2010

Foxwoods Recap

After not really knowing what was going on until the last minute I ended up driving down to Foxwoods very early Monday morning to play in a $400 tournament capped at 250 entrants. I think they received 244.

The level of play was probably on part with a $30 or $50 online buy-in. There were some very competent players at my table but they were also playing straight-forward enough where I put moves on them two or three times.

With the blinds at 800/1600/200 I had around 64,000 in chips.

I had 7d8d on the button and a woman who had been playing fairly tight made it 4,800 from middle position and I elected to flat. Both blinds folded and we took a flop of 2 6 4 with two diamonds. I'm obviously not going anywhere.

With 13,800 in the middle she bets out 6,500.

I tanked for about 90 seconds before announcing a raise and made it 20,500 more on top which was putting her in an all-in or fold spot and she had zero fold equity against me. She ended up thinking for about 3 or 4 minutes before folding black tens face up and asking me to show.

I flashed my 8 of diamonds and mucked the other card which made her tell me she can''t believe I played pocket 8's that way. Yeah, me neither.

I made another move later where I got someone off top pair with no kicker when I held bottom pair and a flush draw. The player, an older guy who played very tight, hemmed and hawed and then told me I must have him outkicked before folding.

My bustout hand was very standard unfortunately. And by standard I mean I took a pretty bad beat to get knocked out just shy of the money.

With the blinds at 2500/5000/600 I had gone card dead and was stuck at 12 big blinds.

UTG, a kid with a PokerStars fleece who acted like an expert but obviously didn't play higher than $20 MTT's, limped in and UTG+1 went all in for close to 20 big blinds. The UTG+1 player had a thick cajun accent and kept saying he didn't know how to play. It wasn't an act. He was pretty bad.

I looked down at QsQh and called his-all in.

The kid with the fleece told me he was laying down a monster he limped to trap someone with "just for me" because "I don't seem like I stink".

The Cajun turned over TdAd and got runner runner diamonds to knock me out. Well played, sir.

Fleece told me he had limped with Jacks. Yeah, that's a trap hand ...

I would definitely do this tournament again - you got a 20,000 starting stack with 25 minute levels and blinds began at 25/50. Unfortunately I was dead for the first four levels but the players had no issue getting into very large pots with very suspect holdings that early on so I felt like I had a large edge over the field with my cash game background and growing MTT skill set.

So, I never ended up playing in the cash games because the tournment lasted into the evening and I didn't feel like staying overnight, but I highly recommend playing anything under a $560 buy-in at Foxwoods if you are competent because you will have an edge over the field for sure.

2.12.2010

Cake Poker Network and Foxwoods Bound

I'm headed to Foxwoods for the long weekend. I'm going down there on Saturday morning and will probably come home Monday. As with my past trips I plan on staying about a mile or two down the road at a much cheaper hotel. Everything else is way overpriced for what you get.

When I go out to Vegas later this year I'll be staying in a suite with my girlfriend so she can be pampered but I don't plan on getting a mud bath or pedicure so the Hampton Inn will work for this weekend.

I think the Foxwoods Mega Stack is going on right now so I plan on sticking to the 2/5 cash games in the hopes that a lot of the tournament players hang around and donk off some money.

And the good thing about staying outside the hotel is that it allows you to hit Mohegan without feeling like a dumbass if the Foxwoods games are dry. So I like staying situated between both places for versatility.

As an aside, I think I am choosing the Cake Poker network as my cash game home. After playing a lot of hands on PStars (rock garden of regs), Full Tilt (only one notch better than PStars) and UB (decent action but not enough traffic) I am choosing PlayersOnly Poker where I will be receiving 33% rakeback and will also be participating in the pocketfives.com monthly rake race where you can earn extra bucks for being on their leaderboard for most rakeback earned in the month.

Cake seems to be a nice little network for games 3/6 NL and lower which is all I'm playing these days with 5/10 shots only taking place if the table I target has more than one bonafied fish sitting at it. That's not to say I don't think I can beat the game - I do. I think I can beat up to and including 10/20 but I have chosen a life that does not allow for lots of cash to be kept online for gambling purposes.

I have basically discovered what my yearly income should be for my poker schedule and it has become integrated into my budget.

I feel like down the road the state of poker will shift once again and more fish will come. And that is when I will adjust and play higher once more. But for now I think it's asinine for anyone to sit at 10/20 and 25/50 and swap pots with regs all day long. No one has any edge unless they are in the top 5% players in the world and I am not in that class.

When poker is finally regulated in the United States, and it will be someday, all the people who were reticent ($10 word) to deposit online when the money is held offshore will enter the poker world and the majority of them will not be good players.

Much like sports, war, and the economy there is an ebb and flow to the poker economy. The majority of success in your poker career will come down to luck and timing - cooler pots where you hope to be the one holding the nuts versus second nuts or running well deep in MTT's in the make or break spots. And so you must create your own fortune by always being aware of the state of the game, your emotions, and the emotions of your enemies.

I can't say I always do this but I do it a lot and that is why I will succeed in places where others will break even or lose.

2.09.2010

Irony/Addiction

Someone plan a Rush Poker intervention for me. I find myself not being able to stop due to how many FTP points I can earn to play the big satellite events.

The irony of me saying the games have dried up is that last night I played in a $1,000 pot and emerged the victor.

I had already logged about 2,900 hands at 1/2 and the villain and I had stacks of approximately $520 each.

From UTG he made it $10 and I bumped it to $35 on the button with red Aces. Here's the full action in all its cooler glory.

Hero (button): $517
Villain (utg): $532 (I think)

Villain raises to $10
Hero 3-bets to $35
Villain 4-bets to $110
Hero flats.

I think he's putting me on QQ and QQ only when I flat here but I could be wrong. I'm never flatting AK but I could flat KK in position to get it all in on a non-ace flop.

Flop: As Kd 7c

Villain checks. I'm putting him on AK, KK, or QQ at this point. Although with him being the one out of position I think it's weird he didn't decide to jam or fold AK and QQ so I've basically put him on KK. That being said there is never any reason to slowplay here in my opinion.

Villain checks
Hero bets $140
Villain jams
Hero snap calls, crowd goes wild.

AA vs. KK is always playing out this way on this flop obviously - but I really like my flat call on the button for partial deception because I think if I jam against a very good player he's going to release KK given the nature of Rush Poker and the depth of the stacks.

I know it's still a cooler and standard and lol obvaments but as you play deeper stack cash games it's important to time your actions and create a plan for the hand. I know if someone instantly jammed 260 bb's on me I'd lay down any hand but Aces in almost all situations so it's something to keep in mind.

2.08.2010

How Quickly Things Change

I think I'm done with Rush Poker now.

The things I had written were true at the time - fish were playing ATC, laggy late position play worked well, etc.

But I just played lengthy sessions over the weekend and the games have completely dried up. My guess is the fish who were initially drawn to it have gone busto and decided not to keep re-depositing. And now it's just a bunch of us 14/12 regs playing nothing but big hand vs. big hand pots which don't occur frequently enough to make this game worth playing. If you want to amass a lot of FTP points it's still a decent game to play but aside from that I recommend going back to the regular tables.

2.01.2010

Highlights I'm Not Proud Of

Over the weekend I played in one of those Knights Of Columbus charity poker tournaments where they had out Visa gift cards as prizes. Top 9 paid and first place was $700.

Normally I stay away from these because the players are often KoC members with no idea how to play the game and I almost feel guilty showing up. Almost.

But a friend of mine recently got his wisdom teeth removed and is unable to drink yet, so he talked me into going there with him.

He took third and I took first.

My suspicions were correct. The players ranged from bad to embarrassing. There was one other kid there who I could tell had a good grasp on the game but he busted with Queens versus Ace King around the middle stages.

At the Final Table I raised every hand and c-bet every flop. My friend was two seats to my right and would mutter before folding because as he correctly said afterwards ...

- I either fold my way to heads up or let you 3 bet me out of every pot I open.

That about sums it up. He busted with 7's versus KJ suited when his opponent flopped a flushdraw with a gutshot and hit his gutterball on the turn. Bink.

Heads up we were even in chips and it was over in 3 hands. He open shoved with 8's and I woke up with 10's. Better to be lucky, right?

At any rate, here are things I'm not proud of doing that night in no particular order.
  • Check raising all-in on the turn against a guy in an oxygen mask and then showing 2-7 offsuit to the table
  • Flatting Aces on the Button against an older woman and letting her think her flopped queen was good by calling her on every street saying stuff like, "I think this call is a bad idea."
  • Slowrolling a kid because he yelled "one time!" at a KoC poker tournament.
  • Slowrolling an old guy because he told me I take too long to act pre-flop.

I'd like to add that beers at these places only cost two quid and so much of my decision making was influenced by these beers. Still, I'm not proud. But I am $700 richer.